Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo Read Free Book Online

and tubby, although his fat had the hard substance of a man who has known a lifetime’s manual labor rather than the slack softness of one who has not. I was used to reading people from behind, an emotional state emanating from someone’s posture, a state of mind indicated by the tilt of the head. There were those who carried a self combusting anger in their backs. Others had the defeated trundle of a loser, the imploded chest and listless arms that asked, Why should I bother?
    I longed to possess the confident thrust of a person with the freedom to pursue her own course of action.
    My guide’s body language was that of someone battling a storm. His shoulders were set in a permanent hunch. His forehead was ready to head-butt any opponents. Doubtless he came from one of the slums. No way had he been born with a silver spoon feeding his mouth, yet he had chosen compassion over resentment.
    I liked him. Of course I did.
    I could always tell whether Bwana or Madama Blessing were in a good mood or, more likely, ready to crack the proverbial whip, and I was usually prepared when they did. It is the skill of a great slave to predict the master’s moods and needs before he himself knows what they are. I relied on knowledge of Bwana’ s daily schedule (forewarned is forearmed), eavesdropping—which is the advantage of those who blend into the decor until called upon to carry out an errand—and I was expert at reading his facial expressions, body language and intonation. Peripheral vision was also essential, as well as an ability, after so many years, to sense his deeper yearnings.
    When Bwana ambled into his den after a dinner of, say, egusi stew, pounded yam, cow leg and a flagon of palm wine, burping and flatulent, reeking of musk oil, chewing a kola nut and aiming its juice into a spittoon, or stopping to piss into a chamber pot that a slave boy held in the right position for him, I usually knew whether to pour him rum-on-the-rocks, a banana daiquiri or a piña colada, or whether to leave him alone or order in some takeaway sex from one of the high-class agencies like Ladies of the Night, recruited from one of the poorer Aphrikan countries like the Congo or Malawi.
    As intimately as I knew him, he barely registered me. My job was to make sure his office was run efficiently.
    The Ambossans were generally a proud, stalwart people. A commonly held joke was that the Gambians knocked on a door, the Ghanaians pushed it open, but what did the Ambossans do? Why, they just kicked the door down, man!
    Bwana was indeed a true Ambossan chief. He had the moist, spongy lips of a man used to having them gratified, a broad porous nose that puckered when irked and oozed perspiration when enraged, the intractable shoulders of a muscle man and an expansive girth that gave him the gravitas of an aging military dictator.
    The rich Ambossan male was often whippet-thin when young but built up an armor of fat as he aged. A big man was supposed to take up a lot of physical space too. This one also walked with the unhurried sway of someone whose authority was without question. A slight gesture of a hand, a raised eyebrow or a stern look sent his minions scurrying. Needless to say, women adored him. The wives of friends and acquaintances who came to visit dissolved into girly titters when he turned his charms on to each one in turn. The number of surreptitious, passionate glances—I could not begin to count.
    Naturally, Bwana was foremost in my mind as we burrowed underneath the city of soil and sand. When he discovered my escape, his nostrils would emit flames so hot his lips would melt.
    I turned my attention to the posters on the tunnel walls: stained, crinkled, slumping in their cracked glass cases like people with humped backs, sloppy bellies and weak knees. They were advertising dramas of yore: the classic Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner, To Sir with Hate, Little Whyte Sambo, Esq., and the famous tragedies The Tragic Mulatto, The Tragic Qua